Imagine two goods, good A and good B, that are sold on the open market. Good A sells for a price that is eight times greater than good B. Person A was able to produce good A in one day, and person B was able to produce good B in one day. So, on the open market, person A makes eight times more money than person B in the same period of time. That means consumers have judged person A to be eight times more productive than person B, even if person B worked much harder!
Nonesense! Consumers have made no judgment whatsoever about Person A or B's productivity. They have judged Product A to be 8 times as desirable.
Neither does it follow that Person A "makes eight times more" than Person B. The raw materials, transport and storage costs are significantly higher for Product A, meaning Person A and B earn exactly the same for the same effort over the same amount of time. If they didn't Person B would stop making Product B and make Product A instead this lowering the supply of Product B relative to Product A. This would continue until the same effort over the same time would yield the same profit for producers of Product A and B. We call this the "market mechnanism."
If it were the case the Product B really were so much less desireable the Product A that it was not possible for equilibrium between the commoditites to be reached then we would have to import Product B from China, India or Bangladesh. We call this "capitalist imperialism.";)
He is confusing selective breeding with evolution, that is why.
Evolution works by means of selective breeding. The selection is happening due to environmental factors rather than by means of intelligent agency, that's all. Don't get mislead about the importance of mutations, which are of similar importance to natural or artificial selection.
Evolution seeks to define creation of new species.
No, the Theory of Evolution states that the observed diversity of life (inter and intra-species) can be explained by evolution (for which see above). Given our ability to sequence genetic material we can know, as Darwin could not, that this Theory is not mere hypothesis.
All of the samples he mentioned support Mendel's work but not necessarily Darwin's.
Because Darwin was unaware of the genetic mechanism by which his observation of natural selection worked?! More than supporting Darwin's work, observations of this type gave rise to it.
You can not create a new species through breeding because by definition species can not interbreed.
The definition of 'species' you are working with, while it is sufficient for some biological analysis, it is simply not appropriate to this problem and in fact only begs the question. For present purposes, rather than thinking of species in black and white terms, you should consider it a statistical phenomenon.
There is It involves no logical (nor empirical) impossibility (though I don't know off the top of my head whether it has been done) to take a sub-set of species A, and over time selectively breed this subset B until its members are no longer capable of producing fertile offspring with members of species A. There is thus no necessary logical connection between the clause on either side of your connective.
No "his problem" is that like you he is giving 'mutation' unwarranted importance. Whereas you seem to think that mutation is the only way a new species could arise, he seems to think that any change observable in the phenotype is a mutation.
how much worse off would we be if we didn't have breast feeding in public
We would be very much worse off! The breastfeeding rate would fall. Child abuse in the form of bottle feeding would become rife, with obvious negative effects on future economic and sporting performance as well as the rise in criminal acitivity among abused children. In cases when mothers resisted such bottlefeeding abuse, we would have an increase in the number of hungry babies crying in public. Worse still some mothers might take their babies into public toilets to feed them, the psychopathological effects of which don't bear contemplating!
I think speech should be free, but seriously, how much worse off would we be if we didn't have Nazi sympathizers and other hate mongers?
... or Christians, Dentists and Travel agents for that matter.
It is arguable that there are some materials so objectionable that ThePeople(tm) in a democracy could ask their governments to ban or restrict general access to them. But that is not the case here! This was meant to be a secret list, which means we have a (supposedly democratically elected) government acting without public oversight. This is to be tolerated only in the rarest cases when it strictly necessary (such as on some issues of national security). What the Australian government is proposing here is intolerable.
Hopefully the release of the list will serve to warn people about the potential scope of the secret list. And hopefully this will strengthen Sen. Xenophon's resolve (and perhaps pursuade some other cross benchers) to scuttle the enabling legislation in the Senate.
I always have thought this to be the most illogical parts of humans of modern mainstream religion... if you die an early death, then chances are you are more likely to have not messed things up.
It is illogical only if you assume the truth to the believer's stated beliefs.
Since we know, however, that religious belief is largely motivated by an unwillingness to accept the fact of mortality, it is not "inconsistent" that those with strong religious beliefs are the least willing to let go.
Guess our intelligent designer needs to go back to the drawing board if (s)he built in a design flaw like that;)
What flaw? You make the mistake of thinking our designer is favourably disposed towards us. Remember this is the designer who brought us Ebola inter alia and chose to make humans specifically susceptible to its effects. I think the evidence suggests that, if She isn't outright indifferent to human suffering, She actually enjoys witnessing it.
It's all very well to say that it is because the voting public let them get away with it, but the voting public are not given a vote on the legislation.
Well thank the gods for that! Can you imagine the dystopia we would live in if they did?:o
Voting only gets you what you want if there is a candidate who will carry out your wishes.
You must live in a place where politicians are not poll driven? Believe me here in Australia, politicians would run over the grandma for a vote.
If the public let the pollies know that their vote was conditional on supporting greater civil liberties, we would get greater civil liberties. But the "public" (via well organised "victims support" lobby groups) is telling the politicians they want tougher more restrictive police powers, that they want Islamicists hunted down no matter what the cost, and that they don't give a rat's arse for civil liberties.
Because the voting public let them get away with it. As long as the majoriry of voters are more concerned with voting in favour of tax cuts and a harsher criminal justice system than with safeguarding civil liberties it will be so.
If you feel strongly enough about this kind of thing, don't just sit around and moan on slashdot. Become active, educate, make this an issue.
But how will you know if a firm passed you over because of something you said online? It'd be impossible to enforce.
It doesn't matter what you know;), it matters what the prosecutor knows.
The crime has two elements. a) A person 'A,' has applied for job from employer 'E.' b) E, or any employee or contractor of E, having reasonable connection with the hiring process involving A, accesses, or attempts to access a online-site deemed 'private' as defined in s3 above.
The first element is trivial to prove, the second might be evidenced by matching various and relating them to computers under the control of E, it's employees and contractors. If a particular hiring manager, such as the one I'm replying to, was known to be a repeat offender, we'd (ie the prosecutor) go to court to get a wiretap.
NOTE: I'm not 100% serious here. It's just that the prattish attitude of the "hiring manager" I was responding to deserved an equal and opposite dose of prattishness.
It's just best not to worry about it.
Pragmatically it's just best to shut up and be very careful about what you post online, or at least post anonymously. Given the power these hiring managers have over our lives anyone who thinks they actually have a right to their own opinion or a right of free speech is so naive as to deserve permanent unemployement. Keep your head down, work for the Man and tell yourself how free you are, that's the way to go.
No, legal terms have legislated meanings, ad you don't get to make them up as you go along.
I don't find it difficult to deal with the use of the word 'discrimination' outside a strict legal definition (and IAAL). Moreover, the text did say "verge on discrimination. (On a side note, not all legal terms have legislated meaning, some have meaning at common law:P)
Googling someone to see if they're a Nazi child molester on the no-fly list is perfectly legal, and as a hiring manager, you can bet I'm going to keep doing it.
Or to see whether they are Christian, collect stamps as a hobby, etc etc etc.
In any case, if you are going to be so stubborn about infringing on our privacy, we are just going to have to pass legislation criminalising your behaviour, aren't we?
Look dude, now (2009) that even Lindzen has canned the skeptical rhetoric, it can be positively stated that "scientists are agreed that we must cut carbon emissions," without fear of contradiction, at least from anyone even moderately well informed.
It is the attorney's (sic) that strategize the attack. So, you are attacking the lawyer's tactics and thus the lawyer himself (sic).
Again, the lawyer has a duty to represent their client's interest zealously, irrespective of the lawyer's personal opinions. The only questions regarding their tactics are 1. are they permissible within the rules of the game and 2. are they reasonably competent, inasasmuch as they are likely to secure an outcome favourable to their client. If you do attack the lawyer personally on the basis of their tactics, (other than for a breach of the two considerations), you are a simpleton. I guess you hate actors for the parts they played in their last movie too.
And, there's no need to defend a lawyer.
This topic and you post clearly demonstrate otherwise.
Yes, it would be horrible to judge people by the company they keep.
And I assume you also believe that Cheney and Bush are completely free of influences of the oil industry, in which they were both employed?
Were they employed as counsel?
Do you seriously believe that defending a client on a murder charge amounts to an endorsement of the act?
A lawyer as a duty to represent their client, irrespective of the lawyer's personal beliefs. I would expect any reasonably ethical lawyer to be able to separate those two interests. Whether they do in fact is a matter of examining the actions of any particular lawyer.
Whether Bush & Cheney were able to separate their duty to the corporations by which they were formerly employed, and their duty to the American people is similarly a matter of examining their particular actions. It would be invalid to conclude that any person, having been at one time in their life an employee of a corporation, would automatically be incapable of dutifully serving in some governmental capacity.
Would you like us to lock up any soldier returning from a the front-line where it was their duty to kill, on the basis that now they are killers it's not safe to have them roaming the streets?
I think that we're probably going to see people defending Obama himself rather than his decision. I personally voted for him and generally support him (at least more than McCain), but I abhor this appointment.
On what basis do you abhor this appointment? You're not judging counsel by the client they represent. No, of course you're not, that would be silly, wouldn't it?
In other words, I'm technically wrong, but practically right?
Nope, you are simply off base.
The question of "republish[ing] original images" vs "creating any new ones" is not related to any trademark which may or may not subsist in "Kings trademark." It's a question of copyright law, not traffic law, not anti-trust law, not trademark law, but copyright law.
The trademark issue arises were you use that mark to trade any goods listed in the category for which the mark is registered (or generally if the mark is covered by the TRIPS based "famous trademarks" protection).
Copying, creating derivative works, performance, etc -> copyright. Trading, branding for use in trade -> trademark.
IANAL, but my understanding of copyright v trademark is...
... wrong.
Copyright is a right (held against everyone else in the universe) inter alia to copy a work (eg. an artistic work) and to create derrivative works. Copyright (in almost every juridisdicition around the world) arises automatically on the creation (technically when a work is first rendered in material form) of a work capable of being the subject of copyright (i.e. not a single word). In a few jurisdictions registration of the right is required before any legal action for infringement may commence. Copyright subsists for a limited (but historically growing) term. Subject to limited fair use exceptions, you may not make a copy of a work subject to copyright for any purposes.
Trademark is the use of a word (or words), image colour, scent etc.. in trade. It requires registration and subsists as long as registrations in maintained. Use other than trade use is not restricted (well that's not 100% true, you can't use it say to defame a company). You can use the name 'Coca Cola,' for example, as much as you like (look I just wrote the trademark 'Coca Cola') providing you are not doing so to sell anything. You can tattoo it on your forehead if your want, but beware any logo may additionally be subject to copyright.
Your (sic) actually willing to dump a product that you already tested and found worthy for your uses because the bosses of the company who makes it are brainwashed?
Disclaimer: I don't use this product. That being said YES, abso-fuckin-lutely I would dump a product based on the belief systems of the bosses and/or owners of a company! Do you seriously want to contribute your hard earned cash (and a portion of your cash will go to pay the tithes) to organisations such as the Church of Scientology?! Incredible!
Everytime you make a purchase decision, you are simulateously deciding what kind of world you want to live in. Sometimes the side effects of consuming the more convenient product outweigh that convenience. I would jump through hoops of fire before knowingly buying from a company which forces its employees to become scientologists.
I thought it was greatly funny. I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. A trig problem on how to stare up a woman's skirt at her panties.
You fail to see how deeply inappropriate it would be for a 40 year old male maths teacher sexually to humiliate half his class in order teach the other half trig?! Wow!
I believe this would be a bad idea. Since no blocking is fullproof, all this would do is give free advertising...
That's the reason for keeping it secret, yes. My contention is that secret censorship is so corrosive to democracy that the damage this scheme does to our system of government outweighs any possible social good it might achieve.
How about the log my ISP keeps when I go pr0n surfing?:o
To take an actual example of where censorship was applied, how about Hezbollah Children's TV where 4 year olds are taught (repeatedly) how glorious it is to become a suicide bomber? While you may have no problem with it, many people would. If there is truly widespread belief that people don't want the children of a particular ethnic group in our midst instructed to grow up and kill us, then in a democracy it is possible for the people to get their government to do something about it.
What is it that you don't want to see?
Huh? If I don't want to see something I don't look (I do plenty of not looking). We are talking about censorship here. That means nobody seeing it (bar the censor of course).
This only applies, of course, if you're seeking to stop yourself from seeing something you don't want to see
Don't be so dull! If it only applied to that, why would censorship be necessary? Do try to stay on topic!
Why do you care what I look at?
Because I may have to live with the actions you take as a result of what you see? Because I don't want you perusing my browser history?
Your thinking is far too indivdualistic. This is not about what I would want to censor. Damn, give me carte blanche and I'd ban anything stupid, meaning almost everything on TV would go, and people would end up having to read books for entertainment. A sure fire recipe for dystopia! This is about the censorship of matter for which widespeard public agreement exists (however you measure that). More specifically it is about complete transparency in regard to censorship so we (the people subject to executive power) can make sure only matter for which widespread public agreement is censored.
What I am genuine puzzled about is why so many posters are taking umbrage at the fact that I want to limit the extent of censorship and to provide safeguards to ensure the executive don't excercise this power arbitrarily?!
Slashdot Mirror
I think my point would be that clause that's usually in there stating that they can unilaterally change the anything in the TOS at any time
Which term is clearly invalid. That wouldn't affect the rest of the TOS, nor TOSs in general.
That's not how terms of a contract work.
As a lawyer who has drafted contractual terms, I have some familiarity with how terms of contracts work.
Not that a TOS is a legally binding contract...
No they are the terms to a legally binding contract. What's your point?
Imagine two goods, good A and good B, that are sold on the open market. Good A sells for a price that is eight times greater than good B. Person A was able to produce good A in one day, and person B was able to produce good B in one day. So, on the open market, person A makes eight times more money than person B in the same period of time. That means consumers have judged person A to be eight times more productive than person B, even if person B worked much harder!
Nonesense! Consumers have made no judgment whatsoever about Person A or B's productivity. They have judged Product A to be 8 times as desirable.
Neither does it follow that Person A "makes eight times more" than Person B. The raw materials, transport and storage costs are significantly higher for Product A, meaning Person A and B earn exactly the same for the same effort over the same amount of time. If they didn't Person B would stop making Product B and make Product A instead this lowering the supply of Product B relative to Product A. This would continue until the same effort over the same time would yield the same profit for producers of Product A and B. We call this the "market mechnanism."
If it were the case the Product B really were so much less desireable the Product A that it was not possible for equilibrium between the commoditites to be reached then we would have to import Product B from China, India or Bangladesh. We call this "capitalist imperialism." ;)
He is confusing selective breeding with evolution, that is why.
Evolution works by means of selective breeding. The selection is happening due to environmental factors rather than by means of intelligent agency, that's all. Don't get mislead about the importance of mutations, which are of similar importance to natural or artificial selection.
Evolution seeks to define creation of new species.
No, the Theory of Evolution states that the observed diversity of life (inter and intra-species) can be explained by evolution (for which see above). Given our ability to sequence genetic material we can know, as Darwin could not, that this Theory is not mere hypothesis.
All of the samples he mentioned support Mendel's work but not necessarily Darwin's.
Because Darwin was unaware of the genetic mechanism by which his observation of natural selection worked?! More than supporting Darwin's work, observations of this type gave rise to it.
You can not create a new species through breeding because by definition species can not interbreed.
The definition of 'species' you are working with, while it is sufficient for some biological analysis, it is simply not appropriate to this problem and in fact only begs the question. For present purposes, rather than thinking of species in black and white terms, you should consider it a statistical phenomenon.
There is It involves no logical (nor empirical) impossibility (though I don't know off the top of my head whether it has been done) to take a sub-set of species A, and over time selectively breed this subset B until its members are no longer capable of producing fertile offspring with members of species A. There is thus no necessary logical connection between the clause on either side of your connective.
No "his problem" is that like you he is giving 'mutation' unwarranted importance. Whereas you seem to think that mutation is the only way a new species could arise, he seems to think that any change observable in the phenotype is a mutation.
how much worse off would we be if we didn't have breast feeding in public
We would be very much worse off! The breastfeeding rate would fall. Child abuse in the form of bottle feeding would become rife, with obvious negative effects on future economic and sporting performance as well as the rise in criminal acitivity among abused children. In cases when mothers resisted such bottlefeeding abuse, we would have an increase in the number of hungry babies crying in public. Worse still some mothers might take their babies into public toilets to feed them, the psychopathological effects of which don't bear contemplating!
But yeah, you're right ;)
I think speech should be free, but seriously, how much worse off would we be if we didn't have Nazi sympathizers and other hate mongers?
It is arguable that there are some materials so objectionable that ThePeople(tm) in a democracy could ask their governments to ban or restrict general access to them. But that is not the case here! This was meant to be a secret list, which means we have a (supposedly democratically elected) government acting without public oversight. This is to be tolerated only in the rarest cases when it strictly necessary (such as on some issues of national security). What the Australian government is proposing here is intolerable.
Hopefully the release of the list will serve to warn people about the potential scope of the secret list. And hopefully this will strengthen Sen. Xenophon's resolve (and perhaps pursuade some other cross benchers) to scuttle the enabling legislation in the Senate.
I always have thought this to be the most illogical parts of humans of modern mainstream religion ... if you die an early death, then chances are you are more likely to have not messed things up.
It is illogical only if you assume the truth to the believer's stated beliefs.
Since we know, however, that religious belief is largely motivated by an unwillingness to accept the fact of mortality, it is not "inconsistent" that those with strong religious beliefs are the least willing to let go.
Guess our intelligent designer needs to go back to the drawing board if (s)he built in a design flaw like that ;)
What flaw? You make the mistake of thinking our designer is favourably disposed towards us. Remember this is the designer who brought us Ebola inter alia and chose to make humans specifically susceptible to its effects. I think the evidence suggests that, if She isn't outright indifferent to human suffering, She actually enjoys witnessing it.
If life begins at conception ...
Since it clearly does not (ie. life must be present both in the sperm and ovum for conception to occur) can we disregard all that follows? :)
It's all very well to say that it is because the voting public let them get away with it, but the voting public are not given a vote on the legislation.
Well thank the gods for that! Can you imagine the dystopia we would live in if they did? :o
Voting only gets you what you want if there is a candidate who will carry out your wishes.
You must live in a place where politicians are not poll driven? Believe me here in Australia, politicians would run over the grandma for a vote.
If the public let the pollies know that their vote was conditional on supporting greater civil liberties, we would get greater civil liberties. But the "public" (via well organised "victims support" lobby groups) is telling the politicians they want tougher more restrictive police powers, that they want Islamicists hunted down no matter what the cost, and that they don't give a rat's arse for civil liberties.
So what do we get?
Why?
Because the voting public let them get away with it. As long as the majoriry of voters are more concerned with voting in favour of tax cuts and a harsher criminal justice system than with safeguarding civil liberties it will be so.
If you feel strongly enough about this kind of thing, don't just sit around and moan on slashdot. Become active, educate, make this an issue.
But how will you know if a firm passed you over because of something you said online? It'd be impossible to enforce.
It doesn't matter what you know ;), it matters what the prosecutor knows.
The crime has two elements. a) A person 'A,' has applied for job from employer 'E.' b) E, or any employee or contractor of E, having reasonable connection with the hiring process involving A, accesses, or attempts to access a online-site deemed 'private' as defined in s3 above.
The first element is trivial to prove, the second might be evidenced by matching various and relating them to computers under the control of E, it's employees and contractors. If a particular hiring manager, such as the one I'm replying to, was known to be a repeat offender, we'd (ie the prosecutor) go to court to get a wiretap.
NOTE: I'm not 100% serious here. It's just that the prattish attitude of the "hiring manager" I was responding to deserved an equal and opposite dose of prattishness.
It's just best not to worry about it.
Pragmatically it's just best to shut up and be very careful about what you post online, or at least post anonymously. Given the power these hiring managers have over our lives anyone who thinks they actually have a right to their own opinion or a right of free speech is so naive as to deserve permanent unemployement. Keep your head down, work for the Man and tell yourself how free you are, that's the way to go.
No, legal terms have legislated meanings, ad you don't get to make them up as you go along.
I don't find it difficult to deal with the use of the word 'discrimination' outside a strict legal definition (and IAAL). Moreover, the text did say "verge on discrimination. (On a side note, not all legal terms have legislated meaning, some have meaning at common law :P)
Googling someone to see if they're a Nazi child molester on the no-fly list is perfectly legal, and as a hiring manager, you can bet I'm going to keep doing it.
Or to see whether they are Christian, collect stamps as a hobby, etc etc etc.
In any case, if you are going to be so stubborn about infringing on our privacy, we are just going to have to pass legislation criminalising your behaviour, aren't we?
They are NOT agreed.
Sure they are, as Oreskes already showed back in 2004. And don't come back with the ridiculous (and unpublished) Peiser study, which even Peiser has eventually conceeded was wrong.
Look dude, now (2009) that even Lindzen has canned the skeptical rhetoric, it can be positively stated that "scientists are agreed that we must cut carbon emissions," without fear of contradiction, at least from anyone even moderately well informed.
Heresy.
Burn him! Burn them all! Then we will have Eden ... "winding down" indeed.
It is the attorney's (sic) that strategize the attack. So, you are attacking the lawyer's tactics and thus the lawyer himself (sic).
Again, the lawyer has a duty to represent their client's interest zealously, irrespective of the lawyer's personal opinions. The only questions regarding their tactics are 1. are they permissible within the rules of the game and 2. are they reasonably competent, inasasmuch as they are likely to secure an outcome favourable to their client. If you do attack the lawyer personally on the basis of their tactics, (other than for a breach of the two considerations), you are a simpleton. I guess you hate actors for the parts they played in their last movie too.
And, there's no need to defend a lawyer.
This topic and you post clearly demonstrate otherwise.
Yes, it would be horrible to judge people by the company they keep. And I assume you also believe that Cheney and Bush are completely free of influences of the oil industry, in which they were both employed?
Were they employed as counsel?
Do you seriously believe that defending a client on a murder charge amounts to an endorsement of the act?
A lawyer as a duty to represent their client, irrespective of the lawyer's personal beliefs. I would expect any reasonably ethical lawyer to be able to separate those two interests. Whether they do in fact is a matter of examining the actions of any particular lawyer.
Whether Bush & Cheney were able to separate their duty to the corporations by which they were formerly employed, and their duty to the American people is similarly a matter of examining their particular actions. It would be invalid to conclude that any person, having been at one time in their life an employee of a corporation, would automatically be incapable of dutifully serving in some governmental capacity.
Would you like us to lock up any soldier returning from a the front-line where it was their duty to kill, on the basis that now they are killers it's not safe to have them roaming the streets?
I think that we're probably going to see people defending Obama himself rather than his decision. I personally voted for him and generally support him (at least more than McCain), but I abhor this appointment.
On what basis do you abhor this appointment? You're not judging counsel by the client they represent. No, of course you're not, that would be silly, wouldn't it?
In other words, I'm technically wrong, but practically right?
Nope, you are simply off base.
The question of "republish[ing] original images" vs "creating any new ones" is not related to any trademark which may or may not subsist in "Kings trademark." It's a question of copyright law, not traffic law, not anti-trust law, not trademark law, but copyright law.
The trademark issue arises were you use that mark to trade any goods listed in the category for which the mark is registered (or generally if the mark is covered by the TRIPS based "famous trademarks" protection).
Copying, creating derivative works, performance, etc -> copyright. Trading, branding for use in trade -> trademark.
IANAL, but my understanding of copyright v trademark is ...
... wrong.
Copyright is a right (held against everyone else in the universe) inter alia to copy a work (eg. an artistic work) and to create derrivative works. Copyright (in almost every juridisdicition around the world) arises automatically on the creation (technically when a work is first rendered in material form) of a work capable of being the subject of copyright (i.e. not a single word). In a few jurisdictions registration of the right is required before any legal action for infringement may commence. Copyright subsists for a limited (but historically growing) term. Subject to limited fair use exceptions, you may not make a copy of a work subject to copyright for any purposes.
Trademark is the use of a word (or words), image colour, scent etc.. in trade. It requires registration and subsists as long as registrations in maintained. Use other than trade use is not restricted (well that's not 100% true, you can't use it say to defame a company). You can use the name 'Coca Cola,' for example, as much as you like (look I just wrote the trademark 'Coca Cola') providing you are not doing so to sell anything. You can tattoo it on your forehead if your want, but beware any logo may additionally be subject to copyright.
Your (sic) actually willing to dump a product that you already tested and found worthy for your uses because the bosses of the company who makes it are brainwashed?
Disclaimer: I don't use this product. That being said YES, abso-fuckin-lutely I would dump a product based on the belief systems of the bosses and/or owners of a company! Do you seriously want to contribute your hard earned cash (and a portion of your cash will go to pay the tithes) to organisations such as the Church of Scientology?! Incredible!
Everytime you make a purchase decision, you are simulateously deciding what kind of world you want to live in. Sometimes the side effects of consuming the more convenient product outweigh that convenience. I would jump through hoops of fire before knowingly buying from a company which forces its employees to become scientologists.
I thought it was greatly funny. I wouldn't have a problem with it at all. A trig problem on how to stare up a woman's skirt at her panties.
You fail to see how deeply inappropriate it would be for a 40 year old male maths teacher sexually to humiliate half his class in order teach the other half trig?! Wow!
I believe this would be a bad idea. Since no blocking is fullproof, all this would do is give free advertising ...
That's the reason for keeping it secret, yes. My contention is that secret censorship is so corrosive to democracy that the damage this scheme does to our system of government outweighs any possible social good it might achieve.
Just a small point to consider ... how can you be sure that the reason for blocking it is accurate?
While true, I don't find a particularly good reason for keeping the list secret. In any case, you don't really believe the govt. would lie to you? ;)
What, exactly, do you want censored?
How about the log my ISP keeps when I go pr0n surfing? :o
To take an actual example of where censorship was applied, how about Hezbollah Children's TV where 4 year olds are taught (repeatedly) how glorious it is to become a suicide bomber? While you may have no problem with it, many people would. If there is truly widespread belief that people don't want the children of a particular ethnic group in our midst instructed to grow up and kill us, then in a democracy it is possible for the people to get their government to do something about it.
What is it that you don't want to see?
Huh? If I don't want to see something I don't look (I do plenty of not looking). We are talking about censorship here. That means nobody seeing it (bar the censor of course).
This only applies, of course, if you're seeking to stop yourself from seeing something you don't want to see
Don't be so dull! If it only applied to that, why would censorship be necessary? Do try to stay on topic!
Why do you care what I look at?
Because I may have to live with the actions you take as a result of what you see? Because I don't want you perusing my browser history?
Your thinking is far too indivdualistic. This is not about what I would want to censor. Damn, give me carte blanche and I'd ban anything stupid, meaning almost everything on TV would go, and people would end up having to read books for entertainment. A sure fire recipe for dystopia! This is about the censorship of matter for which widespeard public agreement exists (however you measure that). More specifically it is about complete transparency in regard to censorship so we (the people subject to executive power) can make sure only matter for which widespread public agreement is censored.
What I am genuine puzzled about is why so many posters are taking umbrage at the fact that I want to limit the extent of censorship and to provide safeguards to ensure the executive don't excercise this power arbitrarily?!